Will claims by arrested ‘Hot Dog Hooker’ cut the mustard?

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Image courtesy WABC via CNN

Will claims by arrested ‘Hot Dog Hooker’ cut the mustard?

Image courtesy WABC via CNN

By Michael Martinez

CNN

(CNN) — New York’s infamous “Hot Dog Hooker” allegedly tried to serve up the full works to one customer, but she didn’t know the customer was an undercover detective and is now facing a prostitution case, police said.

Catherina G. Scalia, 47, of East Rockaway, New York, was arrested after she responded to a call to go a hotel on Long Island, police said. She even drove her hot dog vending truck there, authorities said.

Scalia gave the undercover cop a massage — without a license — late Friday afternoon, police allege. She’s also accused of unauthorized practice, police said.

Then came her alleged offer for additional services, police said.

“She also offered to engage in a sexual act for an undetermined amount of money. Scalia was placed under arrest without incident,” a Nassau County Police Department statement said.

Scalia disputed the charges at her arraignment Saturday in a Nassau County Court in Hempstead, CNN affiliate WCBS reported. “They keep framing me. I am broke. I am jobless. All these arrests are entrapment,” Scalia said.

When CNN’s Jeanne Moos profiled Scalia and her hot dog truck a year ago, Scalia asserted she was a stripper, not a prostitute.

At the time, Scalia said she pleaded guilty in a recent criminal case: “I pleaded guilty to stripper. A stripper is not a prostitute,” she told CNN.

In fact, in last year’s incident, Scalia actually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor prostitution after an undercover officer bought hot dogs from her stand, took her business card offering topless dances, and received a lap dance at her home.

About nine years ago, Scalia faced a similar charge of prostitution out of her hot dog truck.

Scalia has four teenage boys, but she said last year they were in their grandmother’s custody. “To my boys I say your mother’s a stripper. You’re gonna have to live with that ’till the day you die,” Scalia said.